


The Long and Winding Road

by bitfairytale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Destiel - Freeform, Eventual Porn, Hakuna Matata, M/M, Slow Build, also BAMF!Cas, basically what would happen if i were a writer on the show, because we all know that if Cas was a chick this would have happened in season 4, it is going to happen though, so sue me i like to think that my favorite characters are parents in some other universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 16:08:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitfairytale/pseuds/bitfairytale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate universe where Jimmy Novak was a woman instead of a man, it wouldn't have taken long for Cas and Dean to get horizontal. Gabriel goes parallel universe-hopping and discovers one where they have a daughter, a spitfire with Cas's angelic grace and Dean's passion for pie. He yanks her over to their universe as a surprise, and it doesn't take long for the newest WInchester to capture the love of not only Dean, Cas, and Sam, but much of Heaven's Angel Squad. Not to mention that Crowley has taken a shine to her.</p>
<p>This is the story of how Dean finally gets to have a kid that doesn't die on him, and helps him discover that maybe Sam's jokes about his fluid sexuality are a bit too close to home when it comes to Cas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long and Winding Road

**Author's Note:**

> Artisic liberty: Bobby is alive. So are Gabriel and Balthazar. I love them and the writers for Supernatural are cruel masters of the night who like watching me slowly dissolve into nothing. Therefore, I will resurrect them here.

"I'm getting too old for this shit," Dean Winchester collasped into the driver's seat of the Impala with an exhausted groan. He and Sam had just taken out the larger chunk of a vamp coven in a small town just outside of Chicago, and now Dean was looking for a motel where they could crash. It was a routine that wouldn't feel familiar to anybody but a hunter; gank a couple of freaks that went bump in the night, almost never get thanked for it, then retreat to a motel to drown himself in fast food, alcohol and whatever porn or local woman he could get his hands on whenever he could escape Sammy. 

 

Twenty minutes found the brothers checked into their motel room and Dean expertly sewing a small row of stitches into a short but deep cut on Sam's bicep. 

 

"Can you go get us some grub? I think we passed a Five Guys about three miles back or so. I need to get a shower; I can still feel vamp blood in my hair." Dean said, drizzling a tiny amount of brandy onto Sam's cut and then covering it with a bandage.

 

"Sure. You wanna call Bobby, let him know we got the nest sorted out?" Sam said.

 

"Yeah, I got it. But after this, we're taking a break for at least a week. Angels, demons, monsters, ghosts, Crowley, they can all kiss my ass. We deserve a week off, goddamnit," Dean called from the bathroom as he heard Sam grab the car keys and walk out of the room. 

 

He took his time in the shower. There were places Dean didn't think he'd thoroughly washed for weeks, and though he would never admit it, he liked feeling all leisurely and warm and clean. He even took a few minutes to goof off, making the shampoo turn the little bit of hair he had into a mohawk and spikes and the weird ponytail thing that that Sanjaya kid from American Idol had that one year that Sam made him watch it on a bet. 

 

Dean was enjoying the Magic Fingers on the bed that he had claimed on his own later when he remembered that he had told Sam that he would talk to Bobby. The conversation was short; Bobby thanked them for taking care of the vampires, told Dean that he and Sam should take their time making their way back to South Dakota, and Dean made sure that Bobby wasn't working himself too hard. After the very near-death experience with Dick and the leviathans, he and Sam had realized that losing Bobby was something that they had come too close to experiencing and they were determined to hold it off for as long as humanly possible. In many ways, Bobby was more of a father to Dean than John had been. He wasn't going to let anyting take that away from him if he could help it.

 

"Oh Castiel, my Castiel, your best and most faithful servants have done as you desired and taken out the pack of icky vampires, how may we possibly please you further?" Dean called out, barely holding in laughter. The flurry of wings and Cas's sudden, frowning appearance only made it funnier. 

 

"I could do without the sarcasm, Dean," Cas said, which only made the whole situation funnier. So sue him for getting a little sassy with the angel. He needed a laugh these days. "Where is Sam?"

 

"He's out getting some food. He should be back in a few minutes. What's going on up in Wingtopia?"

 

"God has seen fit to resurrect Gabriel." Cas said with a completely straight face. It had taken Dean a few years, but he had finally gotten used to Cas's extremely dry sense of humor that most people mistook for seriousness or obliviousness. And this obviously had to be a joke. The dude had been shish-kabobed years ago by Lucifer.

 

"Very funny, Cas. But seriously. How is everything?"

 

"Dean, I am being serious. I didn't believe it at first either, but it's him. Gabriel has returned to us, and not under the guise of a Trickster." Cas explained. 

 

Great. So not only were he and Sam trying to rid the world of supernatural scum, but now they had to keep an eye out for Heaven's most mischievous angel. Hopefully Gabriel would take pity on them and leave them out of his shenanigans for the time being. 

 

Sam walked back into their motel room with bags laden with the delicious smell of Five Guys' double bacon cheeseburgers and fries.

 

"Hey, Cas," Sam said, shuffling the bags around on the table and handing one to Dean. "There's also a lemon meringue pie that I picked up from the store on the corner."

 

Dean was just about to ask Cas about his search for God (he and Sam had a few funny theories) when an almighty crack resonated through the room and they were bathed in a pure, white light reminiscent of newly fallen snow. Dean felt more than heard Cas's urging to close their eyes.

 

The light faded to reveal a fairly short woman standing with her back to Dean, facing Sam. From what little Dean could see, she was about 5'4 with long hair that was the same dark brown-black color as Cas's. The girl had a knife pulled from the side of her boots before any of them could blink and headed for Sam before faltering and spinning around to look at Dean and Cas. After getting a good look at her, Dean had to guess that she was around sixteen or seventeen. Her eyes widened in shock--eyes that were the exact same blue as Cas's, Dean noted--before narrowing in suspicion and confusion. 

 

She turned back to Sam and walked past him to get to Dean's duffel bag, haphazardly tossed on the table close to the door. The girl rummaged around inside until she pulled out the flask of holy water and took a swig. "I'm not a demon," She cut a small incision on her arm with her knife. "And I'm not a shifter or a ghoul or anything like that. You can check my gums for fangs if you'd like, but I promise I'm not a vampire. Now, Uncle Sammy, can you explain to me why my mom is currently my dad?"

 

The previously dead silent room was suddenly filled with the cacophonous sound of Sam's laughter. "What? Man, I'm not sure who sent you, but this is good. After that vampire coven, we needed to laugh. Thanks."

 

The girl rolled her eyes and sent Patented Bitch Face #4 to Sam before tilting her head back and shouting at the ceiling. "Gabriel, get your scrawny little angel ass down here before I personally find God just so he can smite you for this!"

 

"You know, you probably shouldn't call me scrawny or little when I have at least four inches on you, Squirt." Gabriel appeared behind Castiel. 

 

"What. Did. You. Do." The girl said. Dean didn't know exactly how skilled she was with the knife she was holding, but from the way she was gripping it in her hands and the menacing glint in her eyes, Dean didn't want to be on the receiving end of what she was capable of.

 

"Why do you think I did something?" said Gabriel, trying and failing to look completely innocent.

 

"Maybe because you're you and I'm the person in the world you like to mess with the most?"

 

"Look here, little girl--" Gabriel was cut off by the girls' knife nicking him on the ear as she threw it across the room.

 

"Call me a little girl one more time. I dare you."

 

Dean thought it was time to intervene before someone died. "Not that this isn't incredibly entertaining, because believe me. It is.   
But who are you?"

 

The girl turned to him and gave him a soft smile, a jarring difference to the anger they had seen on her face moments before.   
"My name is Gracie Winchester."

 

"And what, Dean is your mom?" Sam interjected from across the room. 

 

"Of course not. That would be ridiculous."

 

"Then who is it? You asked me why your mom was now your dad."

 

"I believe she means me, Sam." Castiel said.

 

The silence in the small room was deafening until Sam and Gabriel simultaneously burst into great gales of laughter.

 

"So--you're trying to tell us--that you--are Dean and Cas's kid from another--universe--where Cas is a chick?" Sam managed to sputter in-between spurts of laughter.

 

"Yeah, that's pretty much the summary of it. And if this Gabriel didn't put me here, then the other one did, which sucks because I can't exactly yell at someone for something that isn't their fault." Grace said. 

 

Dean felt the first tell-tale stabs of pain behind his eyes that portended a headache. "Alright, alright. We can deal with this. We can sleep tonight, head down to Bobby's first thing in the morning and figure out where we go from there. But right now, I'm hungry and tired. So you--" Dean pointed at Sam, "--are gonna go get clean while me and the Angel Force Five start to sort this thing out."

 

Sam nodded, stole one last amused look at Grace, and grabbed his stuff for the bathroom. Dean gestured for Grace, Cas and Gabriel to join him at the table. He took a beer from the cooler and ran his hand roughly over his face before starting in.  
"Okay. Grace, what's your story?" He figured it would be easier to figure out where to start if he got her side first. Even if she was only with them for a little while before the Other Gabriel snatched her back, she was still his kid and not putting him or the people he cared about in any immediate danger. The only logical thing he could think of to do at this point was hear her out, especially if they were all going to be together for any period of time.

 

"My full name is Roberta Grace Winchester--yes, you named me after Grandpa Bobby, he loves it even though he's never actually said it and Uncle Sammy always says that he shed a few manly tears when you and Mom told him--but everyone calls me Gracie. I've been called Roberta exactly twice in my life; the time I snuck out on a hunt with you and Uncle Sammy when I was twelve and got stabbed in the arm and the time last year when you were first teaching me to drive the Impala and I almost drove into one of Grandpa's junk cars. I'm sixteen. I was born on April 4, 201o. I'm half-angel, but I can't do any cool smiting or anything like that. The most I can do is heal myself, although we're working on me being able to transport myself everywhere like Mom can and I refuse to stop calling Mom 'Mom' even though Mom is now a dude and I'm not going to stop calling you Dad."

 

Dean's mind ran crazy with calculations. 2010 was the year of the apocalypse, and only a year after they met Castiel. And if Gracie was born in April of 2010, then she would have had to be conceived around July of 2009, which was about three months after he got yanked out of Hell and met Cas. 

Shit. We didn't waste any time, did we?

 

"Wait. So if you're our kid from some sort of alternate universe, what else is different? You know, besides Cas being a chick." Dean said. Maybe there hadn't even been an apocalypse there. He knew that he would have done anything to protect his kid and the mother of his child, especially if the child in question was a newborn. 

 

Grace's head tilted to the side, like Cas's did whenever he was confused. But Gracie didn't look confused. It was more like she was examining him; scrutinizing him and weighing her words against one another before she said anything. She remained quiet as Sam came out of the bathroom and joined him, Cas, Gabriel and Grace at the table. It was several long, silent moments until Grace finally spoke.

 

"You want to know about the apocalypse. Whether we were safe, whether you and Uncle Sammy let Michael and Lucifer use you as vessels." Damn. The kid was good. She was definitely Castiel's daughter. Although it couldn't be said that she wasn't his, either. While she had Castiel's dark hair and blue eyes, she had his lips and the trademark Winchester cleft in her chin. She looked a lot like Mary had when Cas sent him to 1973, just with different coloring. A large part of him was proud. They hadn't known her long enough to get her personality and other skills down yet, but Dean and Cas had made one hell of a pretty child. "The answer is no, at least to the vessel part. You almost caved, when I was about three weeks old. Zachariah took me from my crib one night and tried to blackmail you into saying yes. But then Mom stabbed him in the throat. We were relatively safe, though. Near the end, when the final battle came, you had Mom take me to Grandpa Bobby's. Uncle Sammy threw himself in the Pit with Michael, and after you came back to Grandpa Bobby's, you and Mom and Grandpa Bobby spent weeks trying to figure out how to get him back. When I was six months old, I think, Mom and Uncle B went down into the Pit and dragged Uncle Sammy back up."

 

"Uncle B?" Sam said. Dean held the same confusion. He completely understood Gracie calling Bobby 'Grandpa'; hell, in many ways, Bobby was more like a father to him than John had been. Calling Sam her uncle was natural, and he assumed that when she wasn't furious with the Gabriel from her dimension (who was obviously not dead), she probably referred to him as her uncle, too. 

 

"Balthazar. He's my third-favorite uncle, behind Uncle Sammy and Uncle Gabe. But I couldn't exactly say 'Balthazar' when I was a toddler, so we just stuck with B."

 

"How many 'uncles' do you have?" Dean asked. He knew somewhere in his brain that he and Sam were hoarding the conversation, that Cas and Gabriel would more than likely have pertinent questions of their own, but this was the first kid of his that he knew for a fact was his and that wasn't trying to kill him. This was another member of the Winchester family. Sue him, he was being a little selfish.

 

"Whoever Mom calls one of her brothers that doesn't try to kill us, not including Uncle Sammy. So there's really just Gabe and B. You guys don't really like me meeting the others. Well, there's Crowley, but he's not an angel so he doesn't count." Gracie said with a shrug.

 

Before Dean or Sam could angrily interject because, come on, his fucking kid was on apparently good terms with Crowley?, Cas beat them to it.

 

"Are you meaning to say that in this other world, Dean, Sam, Bobby and I allow you to interact with the King Of Hell?" Cas said, voice dripping with frustration.

 

"Of course. I mean, it wasn't initially like that. God, no. You aren't stupid, Mom. But he helped you all hide me from the Leviathans, and he became kinda fond of me. It's actually pretty awesome. He manages to keep most of the demons off my back. It comes in handy when the King Of Hell likes you, you know. It doesn't work with every demon, not the ones that worshipped Lucifer or the ones too low to know Crowley's orders, but it helps with a lot." Grace said in a rush. 

 

The room was filled with several sounds of relief. Gracie was right; having the person who ruled Hell having your back was rather convenient. And for a child that was obviously raised in a hunter's life, she seemed surprisingly well-adjusted and mentally stable. Dean felt another stab of pride at the other him having helped raise such an awesome kid.

 

The Spanish Inquisition lasted on for another half hour before Gabriel stood, hugged Gracie and apologized on the Other Gabriel's behalf, and stole away to Heaven to re-acclimatize himself. After the day that they'd had, even before Grace's arrival, Dean knew that nobody would blame him for being as exhausted as he was. He rose from the table and made his way to his bed. They would take Gracie to Bobby's first thing in the morning and figure out living arrangements and the rest of that.   
Dean burrowed under his blankets and just laid there. Cas and Sam were still interrogating Grace, but it was more gently inquisitive than anything else. Sam was most curious about the events of the other universe and how it parallelled theirs; who had died, who hadn't, which of their Earth-shattering phenomena happened over there as well as in their world. Cas was more interested in Gracie herself and what made her tick. By keeping his eyes closed but remaining awake no matter how much he desperately wanted to sleep, Dean learned an astonishing amount. 

 

Her favorite color was purple. Her favorite band was Queen--not bad, Dean thought, it could be worse. She could like Justin Bieber or some other crap like that--and apparently he and Cas had taught her how to drive the Impala when she was twelve. Other Dean, Other Sam and Other Girl Cas were insistent on her being on the scene for jobs as little as possible, so she and Bobby were like the Quartermasters to their Bonds.

 

As Dean slowly drifted off to sleep, he was calmed by the thought that, contradictory to what he had always thought, he didn't horribly fuck up any kid of his. 

 

~~~

 

The drive to Bobby's passed quicker than it usually did. Not only had Cas decided to stick it out the slow way, but they had Gracie in the back seat as well. Every few miles or so, Dean glanced in his rearview mirror to see her and Cas murmuring together, something about special angel powers.

 

"So what do you think about all this, man?" Sam said quietly, careful to not be heard by the passengers in the back. 

 

"It's crazy. It really is. Another universe where Cas is a chick and we have a kid? Come on. But she's legit, and it's not like we can exactly send her back on our own just yet. And at least she's not like the Amazons. She knows about hunting. She seems to know what she's doing and she's not completely fucked up like the rest of us. All in all, the entire situation could definitely be worse. So I'm not complaining." Dean said. And it was true. Gracie didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry to get back to her own set of Winchesters, which was a can of worms he'd open later. But they could definitely have it worse off than they did. 

 

"Yeah. But you and Cas, Dean, that's the best part about all this." 

 

"Dude. Come on. He's an angel, that's just wrong. Plus he's a guy!" Dean objected. While he personally knew that he had always kind of dug girls and guys, he had never been too great about coming clean about it to John. He would be lying if he said that he had never, ever thought about Castiel in any sort of inappropriate light, but the dude was a fucking Angel of the Lord. 

 

"Oh, please. You know as well as I do that if Cas were a girl, you two would have been together years ago. Literally the only thing stopping you has been the fact that Cas is a guy, for some unknown reason. I accepted it that one time with the ghost in Wyoming when the guy who owned the house wouldn't stop checking you out. And Lord knows that Bobby wouldn't care, as long as you're happy." Sam said. And Dean knew he was right. He was just truly starting to get over what John had been drilling into his head all of these years, and one day he would be mentally healthy enough to try anything with Cas. 

 

"Yeah. I know. Hey, did you call Bobby and let him know that we were bringing a visitor?"

 

"A few hours ago, when I woke up. He's a little curious, obviously, but he says that he trusts us and if we think she's not a danger, then she's not a danger in his eyes either." Sam said with a glance to Gracie and Cas in the back seat.   
Dean took note of Sam's barely concealed fond smile directed at Gracie and smiled a little bit himself. "You like her." It wasn't a question, and Sam knew it. 

 

"Of course I do, Dean. She's your daughter. She's actually really cool and not as emotionally destroyed as most hunter's kids. Plus, come on. Other you and other Cas named your half-angel kid Grace, for Christ's sake. That's hilarious."  
Dean laughed. "Oh please. The fact that her first name is Roberta was obviously me but her middle name being Grace? That's got you written all over it. You and Cas, you sassholes. Everyone that knows her and knows what she is gets a crack out of it."

 

"Oh, they do. Crowley and Uncle B find it particularly funny." Gracie interjected from the backseat. Apparently they weren't being as quiet as they thought. 

 

Dean didn't even have the chance to stop the Impala in Bobby's driveway before Gracie bounded out of the car and into the aging wall that was Bobby, who looked utterly bewildered at the tiny human clutching him before slowly returning the hug.

 

"I know you don't really know who I am right now besides the basics but in my timeline, it's been about a month since I've seen you and I miss you, okay? So let me hug you, if that's alright with you. I just.....it's been a rough coupla days, Grandpa. I kinda need this right now." Gracie said in a rush. If there was ever any doubt that Bobby wouldn't like Gracie, that she wouldn't have him wrapped around her littlest finger like she had already claimed he, Cas and Sam, it vanished. It seemed like nobody was immune to the littlest, newest Winchester's charm.

 

"Alright, alright. Let's move this party inside the house." Bobby said in his usual gruff manner. He clapped Cas on the shoulder and hugged both Sam and Dean as they made their way inside. 

 

After various beverages were doled out (a beer for Dean, Sam and Bobby and iced tea for Gracie and Cas) and the situation with Gracie had been explained to Bobby in full, they began to form a battle plan. 

 

"I can return to Heaven and see if there are any archangels that have the power to send Gracie back to her own universe," Cas supplied. He didn't look too happy about it, though, and Dean suspected that Cas didn't want Gracie to leave. It wasn't like it was Jimmy Novak's daughter was mysteriously dropped on them. Cas had no attachment to her. It would have been easy to return the girl wherever she needed to go. But this girl was his and Cas's; she had Dean's lips and the Winchester chin, and Cas's eyes and dark hair and apparently some weird angel grace as well. Dean knew that outside of Heaven, where the angels were still mad at him for stopping the Apocalypse and the business with Purgatory and therefore not exactly queueing up to be his buddy, Dean and Sam and Bobby were all Cas really had. He understood Cas's reluctance to send something as amazing as Gracie back to wherever she originally was.

 

"You could, but until then we have to figure out what to do now that we have a sixteen-year-old with us indefinitely." Sam said, the observant little bastard. He probably knew that neither of them wanted to get rid of the kid. "She could always stay here with Bobby?"

 

"Are you serious? You want to bench me? Uncle Sammy, I'm useful! I'm not a goddamn baby, I know what I'm doing when it comes to all of this!" Gracie shouted. 

 

"Nobody's trying to bench you, girl. We're just trying to figure out what's best for you until we can send you back to your own space." Bobby said from his corner next to the fridge. 

 

Gracie shifted her attention to Dean and stared at him with the puppy eyes that Sam had been attacking him with for years. Puppy eyes that he had never fully learned to resist. 

 

"She's not staying here--" Gracie did an exaltant fist pump towards the sky "--she's right, she will come in handy. She knows things from the future that we might not know yet. Not necessarily future events that could completely change the timeline, but new monsters and better or easier ways to kill them. Plus, we need to keep an eye on you. Other me and other Cas aren't going to appreciate it if we give you back injured. Where were you all, by the way?"

 

The smile that Gracie sent his way with his permission to remain on the road with them was astonishing in its brightness and it reminded him of his mom, when Cas had sent him back to 1973 and the way his mom had smiled at him. Wide and warm and full of love.

 

~~~

 

Gracie melded into their lives seamlessly. While Bobby and the rest of them searched for another case, they went about doing their daily business and Gracie worked her way in. Sam taught her his various nerd knowledge; stuff he learned at Stanford and what was and was not legal and other things he deemed it necessary for her to know. Cas and her started working on her ability to teleport. So far they were unsuccessful, but her capacity for healing extended to healing small cuts on others. Bobby let her into his research--when they weren't looking for cases, they were researching Nephilim, which was the official term for what Gracie was, someone who was half-human and half-angel.

 

Dean considered what he did to be the most important, though. He taught Gracie all about the Impala: what made her tick, what she needed fixed, and, most importantly, driving her. Gracie already had a base knowledge, which he assumed came from his other self. Girl or boy, there's no way that he would ever let any child of his be near the Impala and remain clueless about his precious baby. John started teaching Dean about the Impala's maintenance and function when he was fourteen, in-between hunts and taking care of Sammy. 

 

Gracie was telling him some funny story about the time that he and Sammy and Girl Cas decided that they should go to Disneyland when Sam came walking over to them, internet printouts in hand.

 

"So check this out. This town in Colorado has had six women go missing--all Mexican, all between twenty-five and twenty-nine, and all new moms. Bobby thinks it's some sort of sacrificial offering to this South American deity. You wanna go check it out?" Sam said, excited. 

 

Dean looked at Gracie with one eyebrow raised. "You up for a little hunting?"

 

"Oh please. South American gods? I'm so in. What about Mom?"

 

Cas appeared behind them in a whoosh of fluttering wing noises. "I am in as well."

 

~~~


End file.
